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Emo, Pop Punk, and its variants in mid-2000s high school culture. Or, It Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race.

 Very first thing is a shout out to the Punk Rock MBA:
https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePunkRockMBA/videos
https://www.instagram.com/finnmckenty/
https://www.thepunkrockmba.com/the-punk-rock-mba-podcast/

I've been wanting to write a response to all of their content for a long time, and while it's great that Finn responds directly to social media posts and messages, there's a lot that I want to say that's impossible to fit into an Instagram DM.  But, without their content on Youtube and in their podcast, this is a topic that I never would've thought about addressing.

While I definitely fucked with the hardcore scene (my first two concerts were a rock/metal show at The Intersection in Grand Rapids, and a hardcore show at Skelletones), to the point where a few of my good friends who I'd have over for bonfires and stuff were actually in bands that played at Skelletones, my little anti-establishment tear in high school had me digging into country, alt-country, cowpunk, and its own variants.  I definitely fucked with JNCO Jeans, Lee Pipes; really anything baggy (Bullhead Jeans from The Buckle are still some of the most comfortable jeans to have ever graced my ass).  Layered shirts a'la Hyde in That 70's Show, wallet chains, and trucker hats a'la Ashton Kutcher where what I wore daily.

Johnny Cash had passed away in 2003, and that made it "cool" in an edgy, alternative way to like country music (at least in the little suburban high school I attended at the time).  His cover of Hurt brought the industrial and goth kids into dark country.  And, as mentioned above, That 70's aesthetic was in full swing, and concurrently, the Guitar Hero games were hitting their strides, bringing Classic Rock to the fore.

Pop-punk, staple of late-90s and early-00s teen culture, was also in full swing.  Bands like Sum 41, Green Day, and Blink 182 were the "big names" in this scene.  Smaller bands like MxPx, The Aquabats, and Mustard Plug were ever-present as well.  The squeaky clean kids listened to Relient K and Five Iron Frenzy; every girl I've ever had a crush on was into Bowling For Soup.

The darker side of pop-punk, and I know I'm gonna piss off 1,000 readers (heh...I've only ever had 1,000 readers in the year and a half I've maintained this blog) with these, contained bands like Skillet, Good Charlotte, Alien Ant Farm, and The Used.  Throw in Linkin Park, Evanescence, Avenged Sevenfold, and maybe even Nickelback (before it became a meme to hate them), and you round out the edgy/Christian/moshpit kids.

But what about bands like Fallout Boy, My Chemical Romance, Hawthorne Heights, Panic! At The Disco, or AFI?  Per Wikipedia, all of these bands fall under the "pop punk" moniker, with similar nasally vocals as Blink 182 and Green Day.  Yes, from a technical or music theory point of view, they're similar.  But, I'd like to posit the idea that these bands were all listened to by The Emo Kids.

According to Wikipedia:

Often seen as a subculture, emo also signifies a specific relationship between fans and artists and certain aspects of fashion, culture and behavior. Emo fashion has been associated with skinny jeans; tight t-shirts with band names; studded belts; and flat, straight, jet-black hair with long bangs. 

Wikipedia puts forth the idea that emo was a subculture within the pop-punk scene, heavily based on aesthetics or how you dressed.  There was a "look," mentioned above as emo fashion.  There were rules.  If you listened to the specific list of bands upthread, but did not dress in that uniform, you were likely an indie kid (who grew up to be 2008's Fixie Hipster).

So, what I'm really getting at is that the musical cliques in my high school were divided pretty cleanly along clothing lines:


The Matrix Of Pants

Baggy Pants Skinny Pants
Bright Colors Skaters, Classic Rock, Gangstas/Hip Hop, Metal Christian Punk, Classic Punk, Hardcore
Dark Colors Industrial, Goth Emo
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